The field of invention is arcade games.
One type of arcade game that is popular in family amusement centers around the country is the redemption game. A redemption game in one in which the player is awarded with tickets, tokens or other items redeemable for prizes. Such prizes are typically displayed at a central location, and are given to players who collect enough tickets to redeem them for a desired prize. Such games, and the prizes associated with them, are commonly seen in locations such as family amusement centers and in pizza restaurants oriented toward children. A problem with the redemption game is the lack of excitement associated with winning tickets, tokens or other items redeemable for prizes. It is less exciting to win a paper stub than an actual item. Thus, players may be lured to seek excitement elsewhere, resulting in lost revenue for the owner of the redemption game. Another problem is the need to set up and administer an area for redemption of tickets or tokens for gifts. A person must be present to monitor the goods and to perform the redemption, and storage space for the goods is required. Another problem is the potential for counterfeiting tickets, or passing off tickets from other sources as those redeemable for goods. The tickets dispensed from the redemption game typically do not contain security features, rendering them liable to counterfeiting. Further, inattention or carelessness of the attendant can allow other types of tickets to be passed off as redeemable ones, allowing an unscrupulous player to obtain a higher-value item than he or she is legitimately entitled to.
In an attempt to overcome the problems of redemption games, prize games were introduced, which dispense prizes directly from the game machine itself. Typically, such machines include a game of skill wherein the player controls some aspect of the game, such as the apparent motion of a light around a circle of lightbulbs, or the motion of a coin through the apparatus, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,326,108 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,445,138. The player selects a location to stop the apparent motion of the light with a controller switch, and wins the prize, if any, corresponding to the selected final location of the light. One problem with this prize game is that the difficulty level is uniform across the prizes, and is therefore not proportional to the value of the prize. Thus, a player may be as likely to win a low-value prize, such as an eraser or gum, as a high-value prize, such as a portable radio or disposable camera. This may be frustrating to the player, who would prefer to play for a high-value prize, and for the owner of the machine, who is substantially as likely to give away high-value items as low-value ones. The owner may attempt to compensate by inserting more low-value prizes into the machine; however, a machine filled with low-value prizes is less likely to attract players, and thus less likely to generate revenue for the owner.
Another problem with known prize games is the lack of visibility into the difficulty level by the player. The difficulty level is typically invisible to the player before he or she begins play, and may remain invisible to the player even during and after play. For example, in some known prize games involving moving lights in a pattern of light bulbs, the light always moves at substantially the same speed. As the light moves in front of the prize, the player attempts to stop the light and win the prize. Because the light moves at substantially the same speed at all times, it is in front of the prize for a fixed amount of time; for example, 100 milliseconds. However, it is known to adjust the difficulty level of the game by providing a time less than the time the light is in front of the prize in which the player must select the light. For example, if the light is in front of the prize from 100 milliseconds, the game machine may be set to allow the light to continue past the prize unless the player stops the light in 70 milliseconds, or 50 milliseconds, or another time period less than 100 milliseconds which is preset by the owner of the machine. The player never has any visibility into the source of the difficulty, and may eventually grow disenchanted with the prize game, as the player never understands why he or she always seems to lose, and has no idea how to improve his or her skills at the prize game.
Another problem with known prize games is the invariability of the difficulty level. Typically, the difficulty level is preset by the owner at a certain level, and is constant for all players of the prize game. The preset may only be changed by the owner of the prize game, typically by removing a portion of the machine and manually resetting one or more DIP switches within the machine itself. Because the difficulty level is typically the same across all prizes in the machine, the preset difficulty level has the effect of making the prize game more generous, or more stingy, with every prize in the prize game.